


Whirlwind

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama/Romance, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 05:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/794581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Blair is attacked at the Synagogue, Jim dreams about what life would have been like for them under Hitler's reign of terror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whirlwind

Ok. *gulp* This is my first time posting a story to this group. It doesn't have a lot of sex, but it does have angst, pain, and mass murder. *someone in the audience yells, "Back up! Mass murder?"* Well, yes. This is a sort of an answer to the Fantasy challenge. This story takes place during the Holocaust--Jim has a dream about it. To say more would spoil the story for you, and I would prefer you to toss rotten tomatoes AFTER you read it. I HAD to write it--I think my muse has a thing for whapping me over the head. I explain where the story came from in the introduction. I hope you like it--and again, I'm sorry it doesn't have sex. If you liked it, let me know. If you didn't, please send constructive criticism, not flames. Flames doesn't help any, except maybe to roast marshmallows.... 

The Sentinel is owned by Pet Fly Productions, not me. I'm just going to drool over Blair and Jim, clean them off, then return them. I promise it's going to be temporary! This story's been swirling around in my head ever since Ann Teitbaum issued her Fantasy challenge. This is one odd story--and I don't know why I'm writing this, to tell the truth. Maybe it's the atmosphere of intolerance so prevalent in today's society, maybe it's just that people forget..what they shouldn't. This story also came from a dream I had after visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. That place is enough to give you nightmares, man. I encourage you, if you're ever in the area, to visit it, especially the Tower of pictures. This one has plenty of angst and pain, and very little sex (sorry, people) but I hope you enjoy it--and come away with it with more understanding. Chaim Goldberg and Kurt von Ellison are mine. Mordecai Anicelwicz was real--he led the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and kept the Nazis off for months before the final destruction of the Ghetto. Whirlwind is dedicated to the memory of two groups: the ten million who died in the Holocaust, including six million Jews, and the Allied soldiers who fought to stop Hitler. Especially my grandfather, Noel McCoy, who fought in the Pacific. If it hadn't been for him, and countless other people, I and my brother would have been caught up in the Final Solution. Why? I was born deaf, and my brother had a problem with his foot--prime candidates for murder, in Hitler's mind. He died before I was born, but thanks, Grandpa. This one's for you. 

## Whirlwind

by Lady Serez  


Jim closed the door to the apartment quietly. It had been a hell of a day--a bunch of neo-Nazis had disturbed the Yom HaShoah service at the local synagogue. They had screamed anti-Semitic slogans, broken the windows, and generally created mayhem. After tear gassing the neo-Nazis, Jim and others had managed to arrest everyone involved. He looked at the sofa, where Blair lay. 

"Hey, Chief. How you feeling?" Blair forced open one black eye and squinted at Jim. "How do you think I feel, man? Being attacked by Nazis is not my idea of a good time. Are they all in jail, Jim?" "Yeah..until their lawyer comes and bails them out. Are you sure you're ok, Blair?" Jim sat on the edge of the sofa and smiled at Blair. 

Blair didn't smile back. "Poor Rachel Blaine. She survives the Holocaust, then comes here and has an heart attack because of these filthy people." Blair rolled off the sofa and sighed. "Is she alright?" "Yeah, for now. Her family's with her. Why are they taking this for granted, Jim? These neo-Nazis attacked the service, they screamed anti-Semitic remarks, and it only gets a few seconds on good old WNOX." Blair slumped back into the sofa. "It's almost like...they think it won't happen here. Jim, that's what they thought in Germany. 'It can't happen here', is what my family there thought. Well, they found out different." Jim frowned. "They? What do you mean by 'they'?" Blair smiled tiredly, ran his hand through his hand, and sighed. "They? Normal people like you, Jim. People who go about their lives, never expecting disaster to happen. That's what I mean. That's what my family were, normal people." 

Jim bit his lip. He slipped down next to Blair, took him into his arms and rocked him. Blair gulped, and then cried out the events of that day. Jim held him close, promising silently that nothing would ever happen to his Guide...Jim found himself starting to nod off. The events had taken their toll on him as it had on Blair. He nudged Blair to make room for both of them to lie down on the sofa. Snuggling down, Jim slept and dreamed.

* * *

_**Warsaw Ghetto, 1944** _

Kurt von Ellison rode through the streets in a jeep, thinking dark thoughts. He hated this job, hated Poland, and especially hated this filthy ghetto. *Damn the SS for using the Army to do their job! Well, blow it out your ass, Himmler! Hopefully, the papers'll come through and I can transfer to the Western front to fight the Allies. I hate this place. Hate it.* He shook awake from his thoughts as they stopped in front of the Judenrat building. "Hauptmann von Ellison, they're supposed to have the list for today's transports. Why don't I go into and get the list?" the young SS driver said. Kurt shook his head. "No, Schmidt. I need to stretch my legs some. Besides..there's less and less people to transport, there's plenty of time. Wait here." The driver nodded. He didn't want to go into the building, let the Hauptmann do it. 

Chaim Goldberg watched as the tall Wehrmacht officer strode into the building. *damn Nazis. Kill my entire family, try to starve the ghetto to death, then conduct transports for 'resettlements'. We all know where they're going, don't we.* Mordecai Anicelwicz shook him, scowling. "Chaim, you need to find out when they're closing down the Judenrat council. When they do that, it means they're moving closer to liqudating this ghetto like they did in Lodz, Vilnius and Riga. Chaim. We have to fight! I'm not going to my death meekly, like a sheep. If I have to die, I'll take some Nazis with me..." They jumped as the Hauptmann strode out the secretary's door with several papers in his hand. The secretary followed, talking intently. Mordecai pushed Chaim closer, and he walked forward. 

"I am sorry, Secretary. These," Kurt indicated the paper in the secretary's hand, "are Eichmann's orders closing down the council. Prepare to close in April. And thank you for the transport lists." He turned his head, and noticed a dark-haired man listening intently. He indicated the man with his head, "Who is that Jew looking at us?" The secretary blanched, but recovered his breath enough to say, "Chaim Goldberg. His father was a rabbi, and he followed in his footsteps. He would have been a good one, if not for... His family is German, and arrived here in 1941 from Hamburg. His mother, Naomi, along with his sister Alicia, were deported a few weeks ago. Does that help, Hauptmann?" 

Kurt looked again. Then he looked at the transport list. The name, Chaim Goldberg, was on it. Kurt motioned the man over. Chaim looked at Mordecai, and then walked forward. "Are you aware that your name is on today's transport list, Goldberg? No? Then you will come with me to translate for me, then you will get on the train." Chaim blanched, and looked at Mordecai in a panic. Mordecai dropped his head and shook it. No, Mordecai couldn't help now. "Yes, sir. Now?" Kurt pointed to the door. "Beyond there is a jeep. Tell the driver you've my permission to get in. You will wait for me." 

Chaim walked toward the doors. He stopped and turned. "Sir, don't I need to take my suitcase with me?" Kurt looked Chaim full in the eyes. "No. You don't. Now go." After a brief conversation with the agitated secretary, Kurt got into the jeep and told the driver to go to the plaza where deportees were held before loading on the trains. 

Chaim stood besides Kurt as he read out the names of people to be deported. He waited as Kurt barked out instructions in German, and then he translated these instructions into Yiddish. As the deportees walked toward the trains, Kurt stopped Chaim. "Thank you for translating. Today's proceedings were the smoothest they've been in a long time." Chaim jerked his arm from Kurt's hand and melted into the crowd. Kurt stood and stared for a long time. The driver walked up to Kurt, and asked him the destination of the train. Kurt sighed and walked to the front of the train. He looked back as the doors were closed and locked, the hands showing through the bars. Finally, he came to the chalkboard designated for noting destination. Kurt lifted his fingers, and wrote, "Auschwitz", in broad letters. Having done that, he tapped on the engineer's door, informing him it was time to start. 

Chaim stood near the window, as he jockeyed for a better position, or at least a position where people weren't pressing him against the wall. He looked at the tiny cattle car--room enough for 30 people, but there must have been about 100 jammed into the car. He sighed, and grasped the bars. Three days and nights, then what? He didn't know, but what little he knew frightened him. Chaim almost fell as the train began to move. He tightened his fingers and started praying to anyone who were listening, to please hurry the Allies up. Get them here before...The train whistled, and sped up. 

Kurt watched the train disappear in the distance. He had a feeling that something important had vanished from his life. He bent his head, and trudged off the platform. He looked up at a blue sky, and thought, I hate this job. 

* * *

Jim jerked awake from the dream, tossing Blair onto the floor. Blair grumbled, then grew concerned as he saw the expression on Jim's face. "You alright?" "Blair, I just had this weird dream. I dreamed about a guy named Kurt von Ellison--he was a Hauptmann in the Warsaw Ghetto. And he deported this guy-- looked a lot like you, Blair." Blair couldn't help but smile. "Yeah? What was his name?" "Chaim Goldberg---the dream said he was from Hamburg, Germany. Had a mother named Naomi, and a sister named Alicia. Weird." Jim noticed that as he narrated what had happened, Blair had steadily grown pale and was shaking. "Chief? What's wrong?" 

"Kurt von Ellison--was he any relation to you?" "I don't know, Blair. But the name? Maybe." Blair pulled up his knees, and planted his chin on them. "He hated his job, Blair. He kept thinking it, all through the deportation. He wanted a transfer." 

Blair thought a minute. "Jim. Did you know Jews name their children after people who's already dead? It's a way to make sure the Angel of Death doesn't grab the wrong person. Naomi was named after someone in the family. What would you think if Chaim Goldberg did live during that time? If he was deported by Kurt von Ellison? Come on, I want to show you something." He stood, brushed off his jeans, and pulled Jim to his feet. "Chaim Goldberg is real? But it was just a dream, Blair. It was just a dream!" 

Jim watched as Blair walked up the stairs. When Blair didn't hear Jim's footsteps, he looked back and tapped his foot in impatience. Jim sighed and followed him. He found Blair rooting through the mess that was his study room. "Found it!" Blair waved a huge brown scrapbook. "Come on, look at this. Is this the guy from the dream?" Jim looked, and saw Chaim Goldberg. The picture had obviously been folded many times, but the face still showed. Chaim stood, smiling. He had his hand on the shoulder of a young girl with curly hair sitting on a stool. A older woman sat next to the girl. She looked a lot like Naomi, except she wore 1930's clothes. A man, with Chaim's black hair and shorter than Chaim, had his hand on Chaim's shoulder, and was smiling. Blair pointed out each one. "That's Chaim Goldberg. That's his father, Mordecai, and his mother Naomi. His sister Alicia. Mordecai was killed during Kristallnacht--that's the Night of Broken Crystal. November 8-9, 1938. Alicia and Naomi was deported a few weeks before Chaim..." "That's what the secretary said in the dream. Were they from Hamburg?" "Yeah, they were. They were killed upon arrival to Chelmno, one of the smaller death camps. No woman ever got out of there alive." "Chaim?" "Chaim. He survived the first selection, and the death march to Bergen-Belsen but died of typhus shortly after liberation." Blair and Jim were silent. 

Blair was the first to break the silence. "Do you think Kurt von Ellison was real?" Jim walked to the phone. "There's someone that could find out for us." He picked up the phone and dialled a number. Blair decided to go to the kitchen and get something to drink. That dream Jim had--it needed thinking about. He walked down to the kitchen, and got himself a glass of lemonade. After about fifteen minutes, Jim followed, pale and shaking. "Jim, man, what's wrong? Here, have some lemonade." "No, get me a beer. I need a beer." Jim grabbed the beer from Blair's hands and drank it. He sat on the stool until he calmed down. 

"Blair. I talked to a guy at this university in Germany-- they're got all the lists of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht. He says Kurt von Ellison was real. What's more, he's related to me." "What!" "Let me finish. To join the Nazi Party-- everyone were required to, near the end of the war--he had to prove he was Aryan. He proved it, no problem, but he also noted that he had relations in America using the name Ellison in this red book, I'm not sure I understand what it had to do with being an Aryan. Anyway, he died in Warsaw, during the Ghetto uprising in April 1944." 

Blair stood open-mouthed, looking at Jim. "Man. Man, oh man. This is weird. Why did you dream about them now? What's the point?" Jim looked at Blair. "There's one thing I didn't tell you. When Kurt was watching that train pull away--he had this feeling that he was losing something important, just when he'd found it." "Jim. You ever heard of reincarnation?" "Being born again. I don't believe in that. It's not logical. Besides, I don't want to get into a big theological argument with you. I just want to hold you, make that dream go away." 

"Big Guy, that dream could've been a memory.." 

"Shut up, Chief, and come here." 

Upstairs, in Blair's bedroom, where the scrapbook lay open, the pages slowly began to turn. Slowly, then rapidly, it turned. It finally came to rest on a picture Blair hadn't shown Jim--the picture a Jew had taken of Chaim and Kurt as Kurt oversaw the deportation. Slowly, Kurt and Chaim smiled. The smiles dissolved, and the picture returned to normal. 

* * *

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